July 23, 2010

Reason #4: Theaters Get Screwed
Here's how the movie theater business model works, in theory: Theaters pay to rent the prints of movies from studios to draw an audience who'll buy tickets (the profits of which they'll split with the studios) and maybe also snacks (the profits of which they'll keep). Both entities need the other to survive, creating a sustainable symbiotic relationship.
Here's how it works in practice: Since there's basically no truly independent distributorship left (thanks, deregulation!), studios have an insanely greater level of power in this relationship - they can set all the terms, because there's nowhere for theaters to turn for product. As such, they've been able to negotiate plum deals like keeping more and more of the ticket sales and sketchy package deals whereby theaters have to agree to book certain iffy releases if they want to also book a big one from the same studio: "You want our eagerly-awaited Leonardo DiCaprio action movie? You've gotta take our crummy undead cowboy movie first!" (That's a theoretical example, by the way; I have no evidence that that's how Jonah Hex got a release, but it wouldn't shock me.)
So if you want to know why the projection sucks, why the floors are sticky, why the sound is lousy and why the ushers can't seem to do anything about crowd control, it's because they can't afford to. They need butts in seats, bottom line, and even then they're barely surviving at this point.